When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they’ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. OurPrivacy Noticeexplains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Read More

Related Articles

Now, as the review is expected to conclude later in the year, campaigners hope they will finally see justice – and can begin the process of getting compensation for the damage done to their children.

Marie Lyon, chair of the ­Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests said: “It has been a long time coming but we are confident we will finally see justice.”

The Government has appointed IMMDS to respond to patients’ concerns by reviewing the evidence of the connection between birth defects and Primodos. IMMDS is also reviewing vaginal mesh and birth defects linked to sodium valproate.

The review is expected to conclude in October and following its ­conclusion, chair Baroness Julia Cumberlege will make ­recommendations to the UK Government.

Campaigners hope those recommendations will be implemented.

Marie said: “It is very important that these recommendations are right and acknowledge past regulatory failures.

“By acknowledging these failures, our members will feel justice has been served.

“We have great faith in the review team and this is the first time a ­Government body has reviewed the evidence of regulatory failures in ­relation to hormone pregnancy tests.

“We believe there was enough evidence to take Primodos off the market in the 60s but they failed to do it till much later. So we are going to prove it was a deliberate failure.

“Recognition is the most important thing. If it is recognised that there were regulatory failures that will be a massive boost to our campaign. Then there needs to be redress for people who have been affected.”

Primodos was taken by an ­estimated 1.5million women in the UK before it was withdrawn from the market in 1978.

In 2014, a panel of independent experts was set up to probe links of birth defects and oral hormone ­pregnancy tests but was later slammed as a “whitewash” by numerous MPs and campaigners and a new probe was ordered.

In November 2017, an expert working group set up by the Commission on Human Medicines concluded there was no “causal association” between the drug and severe disabilities in babies.

Many parents who had taken Primodos turned to The Record to share their ordeal

Read More

Related Articles

In February last year, the Record reported that a study at Aberdeen University linked the drug components of Primodos to congenital ­malformations in fish embryos. Zebrafish are a recognised method of research which can be linked to harm in humans.

Then in December, an Oxford University team reviewed all previous studies into Primodos and found a “clear association for all congenital malformations”.

The developments have offered hope for thousands of families who have never been acknowledged or compensated despite repeatedly trying to prove that Primodos affected them and their children.

In 1982, a group action against Schering Chemicals, which produced Primodos, was shelved.

Since the court case, it has emerged that 26 studies from 1960 on suggested the drug may have caused ­miscarriages and birth defects, yet it remained on the market.

A spokeswoman for Bayer, which acquired Schering in 2006, said: “Bayer is participating in the ongoing IMMDS and has provided the required ­documents.

“There is no scientific evidence available which would support the existence of a causal relationship between use of Primodos and adverse outcomes to pregnancy.

“Bayer has worked together with the Medicines and Healthcare ­products Regulatory Agency to help inform the Commission on Human Medicines expert group’s review of the properties of the sex hormones contained in Primodos and other products.

“Bayer has given the MHRA full access to all the ­scientific records that it continued to hold relating to ­norethisterone acetate, ethinyl­estradiol and combination products that include such active substances.

“The expert group considered all scientific evidence from all ­relevant disciplines and concluded that the available evidence does not support the existence of a causal relationship between use of Primodos and adverse outcomes to pregnancy.”

Campaigner Wilma Ord, then 67, from Livingston, took Primodos in 1970 while pregnant.

Her daughter Kirsteen McGovern, 43, was born profoundly deaf, severely asthmatic and has cerebral palsy.

She bravely spoke out in The Record in 2015 and joined scores of families in the fight for justice.

RUSSELL AND NANCY KELLY

Nancy Kelly's son Russell was born without his left hand and wrist due

Russell Kelly, 47, was born without his left hand and wrist after his mum Nancy took a hormone-based pregnancy test.

Taxi driver Russell, of Glasgow, was born in 1973 and his mum Nancy blamed the fact she was an older mother, at 31.

But, after reading of other mums who blamed children’s birth defects on NHS-approved drugs taken while pregnant in the 70s, Nancy realised the drug she was given could be behind Russell’s deformity.

Speaking to the Record in February 2015 Russell said: “This could have been prevented but instead so many lives were affected because women trusted their GPs.”

Nancy, then 74, said: “I’ve lived 40 years with guilt and shame.

“I’d never have taken it if I’d known there were risks associated.”

ROSE AND BOBBY STALLARD

Rose Stallard and Bobby Stallard with daughter Elizabeth

In 2014, Rose and Bobby Stallard told The Record how they were thrilled when their daughter Elizabeth was born after a normal pregnancy and uncomplicated home delivery.

But just months later they were told their daughter had brain damage.

For years, Rose felt she had nowhere to turn until she read the plight of another mother in the Daily Record in the late 70s who, like her, had taken Primodos and had a child with disabilities.

BETTY McPARTLIN

Betty McPartlin

Betty McPartlin, whose baby son died of a heart defect five days after he was born, told the Record in February 2015 that she believes Primodos was to blame.

Betty, who was 23, and husband Ritchie, then 25, were overjoyed when Michael was born on April 2, 1971.

But Betty, 67, from Glasgow, was devastated when he died.

A post-mortem revealed the tot had suffered from a “transposition of the heart”, which means the pulmonary artery and the aorta switched position.

Betty was reduced to tears after reading of other mums who blame NHS oral hormone pregnancy tests for causing serious side effects in their children. Betty said: “Michael’s death never felt right with me and when I read the other women’s stories in the Record, something fell into place.

“I had taken those pills and realised they could have been responsible for Michael. I’m horrified to think I took them.”